[Sigia-l] XFML

[PeterV]

>I'd also explain specifically why it might be better to use XFML when many
>existing publishing/management software already have the capability to
>extract data from a giving subsection of a webpage through RSS or regex and
>manipulate the returning data.

Thanks! I'll give explaining faceted (which you're right, I'm using in a 
way that isn't exactly universal) some thought.

As for RSS and regex: XFML has very different uses from RSS: RSS is for 
news syndication, XFML is for exchanging and connecting metadata 
information. You could kindof use RSS to syndicate metadata (alhough I'm 
not sure how you'd represent hierarchy or facets), but you'd be hard 
pressed to use the format (or any other existing format except for 
topicmaps (See http://topicmaps.org )) to connect metadata between 
different websites, which is in my opinion the killer app of XFML.

I based the design of XFML on topicmaps, so I was really standing on the 
shoulders of giants there, people far cleverer than I could ever hope to be 
:) The issues XFML attempts to address are very different from RSS, the 
main ones are listed on the  http://xfml.org homepage. They're exactly the 
issues that IMHO have meant the failure of RDF ( http://www.w3.org/RDF/ ) 
when it comes to adding meaning to the web at large.

Cheers, time for some food and a coffee!
PeterV